Duck Souls

Mr. Darcy

Are they punished in the afterlife for all the rape they commited?

Tachyon

According to Thomas Aquinas duck souls are not immortal, so they do not experience an afterlife.

Also 'rape' as applied to the actions of an animal is probably dubious.  Animals are not supposed to be capable of sinning.

Sredni Vashtar

Thomas Aquinas was a prick.

Setting that aside, applying human moral standards to non-human animals is problematic for many reasons, but that the survival of the mind and personality after death does not strike me as something that would be human-exclusive and assuming some kind of meta-moral framework therein, I think that it is not totally implausible.

Tachyon

i dunno, i don't see any reason to assume that ducks are rational.  Is an animal that lacks reason even capable of moral behaviour?  They appear to be principally driven by instinct.

Also the notion of punishment seems to imply the passing of judgement, rather than simple cause and effect.  Like, if you shut your fingers in a door you wouldn't normally call the resulting injury a punishment for putting your fingers there.  With that in mind, i think this is a theological question.

Sredni Vashtar

I would argue that anything with the ability to think past a simple stimulus/response reaction is rational to some degree. A duck is at least partially rational, as is a dog, or an octopus. The question is not of rationality itself, but the degree of rationality in thought: The rationality ratio, as it were.

Using that as a metric, humans and other highly intelligent animals like cetaceans and elephants are far more capable of moral agency than simpler but still somewhat sophisticated animals like ducks and hedgehogs, which are in turn more rational than tuataras, bees, and so forth.

But yes, the question is ultimately theological or philosophical rather than biological.

Viani

ducks labyrinth vagina rape pussy fucker

Justice4243

I wonder if a duck raping another duck is positive or negative Karma. Animals tend to get positive karma for being good versions of that animal and ducks are sort of known for being rapey. 

On the other hand, they're inflicting harm on another animal...

Sredni Vashtar

Given that the body of the female duck has become pretty effective at keeping such assaults from producing progeny, I would say that it's probably a very bad thing.

This is a very strange conversation.

Justice4243

Theology, ducks, and Heapers is like the perfect storm of strange. We'll have to see how far we go before Ponies become relevant.

That aside, that's an interesting point. Nature/Evolution itself seems to be against the act in this case.

Sredni Vashtar

Less aggressive ducks are better for duck-kind than jerk ducks. It makes sense, particularly if you look at evolution as a collaborative struggle against the elements just as much as it is a competitive one. Russian evolutionary scientists (the best known being Kropotkin) were very keen on this model, although scientists in the West seemed to latch onto a more combative world-view, perhaps because it better suited their political motives. Which is not to say that the Russians did not have their own agendas much of the time—again, consider Kropotkin—but their view does seem a bit more sensible than the "red in tooth and claw" model that so many people even now think evolution represents.

Justice4243

You read it here, ducks.

Duck rapists get reincarnated into something fowler on their next life.

Sredni Vashtar

Like a really ugly chicken!

Tachyon

Tre

whelp

I doubt I have very much to add to the discussion about ducks, but that is a Zombie Chicken from Rayman 2: The Great Escape, and yes, it is pretty damn ugly

although I've been knocked off of moving barrels many a time by those things, so I'm probably a little biased.

okay, carry on

-rides off into the Raymanian sunset-

Tachyon

they're funny now, but those things freaked me out when i was a kid

Tre

Yeah, I'm kind of glad I got into the series as a teenager because in all honesty it's pretty screwed up.

Luckily I'm pretty screwed up too, so it fits!